Excluded middle and bivalence

I consider two related objections to the claim that the law of excluded middle does not imply bivalence. One objection claims that the truth predicate captured by supervaluation semantics is not properly motivated. The second objection says that even if it is, LEM still implies bivalence. I show that LEM does not imply bivalence in a supervaluational language. I also argue that considering supertruth as truth can be reasonably motivated.     

Does the law of excluded middle require bivalence?

Determining whether the law of excluded middle requires bivalence depends upon whether we are talking about sentences or propositions. If we are talking about sentences, neither side has a decisive case. If we are talking of propositions, there is a strong argument on the side of those who say the excluded middle does require bivalence. I argue that all challenges to this argument can be met.     

The twofold face of fatalism: collectivist fatalism and individualist fatalism

Fatalism has been a central framework for understanding the psychological processes in cultures with pronounced collectivism that are economically poorly developed. In this context, fatalism emerges as cognitive schema defined by passive and submissive acceptance of an irremediable destiny, governed by some natural force or the will of some God. This image has now lost such a clear profile. But currently, fatalism also accompanies the life of people from individualist cultures, who live in a highly developed, or even opulent, economic context. In this case, fatalism is like some mood of uncertainty, insecurity, and helplessness following the events that characterize the society of global risk. In this paper, we propose a theory to develop the two faces of fatalism.     

Pragmatism and bivalence

The success of the pragmatic account of truth is often thought to founder on the principle of bivalence—the principle which holds that every genuine statement in the indicative mood is either true or false. For pragmatists must, it seems, claim that the principle does not hold for theoretical statements and observation statements about the past. That is, it seems that pragmatists must deny objective truth‐values to these perfectly respectable sorts of hypotheses. In this paper, after examining three pragmatist attitudes towards bivalence, I shall suggest that the pragmatist's proper stance is to treat bivalence as a regulative assumption of inquiry.     

The open future, bivalence and assertion

It is highly now intuitive that the future is open and the past is closed now—whereas it is unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first. Recently, it has become increasingly popular to claim that the intuitive openness of the future implies that contingent statements about the future, such as ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ are non-bivalent (neither true nor false). In this paper, we argue that the non-bivalence of future contingents is at odds with our pre-theoretic intuitions about the openness of the future. These intuitions are revealed by our pragmatic judgments concerning the correctness and incorrectness of assertions of future contingents. We argue that the pragmatic data together with a plausible account of assertion shows that in many cases we take future contingents to be true (or to be false), though we take the future to be open in relevant respects. It follows that appeals to intuition to support the non-bivalence of future contingents are untenable. Intuition favours bivalence.     

Presentism and fatalism

It is widely believed that presentism is compatible with both a libertarian view of human freedom and an unrestricted principle of bivalence. I argue that, in fact, presentists must choose between bivalence and libertarianism: if presentism is true, then either the future is open or no one is free in the way that libertarians understand freedom.     

The open future: bivalence,determinism and ontology

In this paper we aim to disentangle the thesis that the future is open from theses that often get associated or even conflated with it. In particular, we argue that the open future thesis is compatible with both the unrestricted principle of bivalence and determinism with respect to the laws of nature. We also argue that whether or not the future (and indeed the past) is open has no consequences as to the existence of (past and) future ontology.     

Conditional Excluded Middle

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle (CXM) in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley’s recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley’s counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with both CXM and Tooley’s counterexample.

---

Defending Conditional Excluded Middle

Lewis (1973) gave a short argument against conditional excluded middle, based on his treatment of ‘might’ counterfactuals. Bennett (2003) , with much of the recent literature, gives an alternative take on ‘might’ counterfactuals. But Bennett claims the might‐argument against CEM still goes through. This turns on a specific claim I call Bennett’s Hypothesis. I argue that independently of issues to do with the proper analysis of might‐counterfactuals, Bennett’s Hypothesis is inconsistent with CEM. But Bennett’s Hypothesis is independently objectionable, so we should resolve this tension by dropping the Hypothesis, not by dropping CEM.     

Understanding academic attitudes and achievement in mexican-origin youths: ethnic identity, other-group orientation, and fatalism

This study tested the relationships among ethnic identity, other-group orientation, fatalism, and 2 dependent variables: attitude toward education and school, and grade point average (GPA). Mexican-origin adolescents (N = 222) completed the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (J. S. Phinney, 1992), the fatalism scale of the Multiphasic Assessment of Cultural Constructs-Short Form (I. Cuellar, B. Arnold, & G. Gonzalez, 1995), and the attitude scale of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory-High School (C. E. Weinstein & D. R. Palmer, 1990a). Other-group orientation was positively related to attitude and GPA, and a negative relationship between fatalism and attitude was demonstrated. No relationship emerged between ethnic identity and the dependent variables.     

Knowability and bivalence: intuitionistic solutions to the Paradox of Knowability

In this paper, I focus on some intuitionistic solutions to the Paradox of Knowability. I first consider the relatively little discussed idea that, on an intuitionistic interpretation of the conditional, there is no paradox to start with. I show that this proposal only works if proofs are thought of as tokens, and suggest that anti-realists themselves have good reasons for thinking of proofs as types. In then turn to more standard intuitionistic treatments, as proposed by Timothy Williamson and, most recently, Michael Dummett. Intuitionists can either point out the intuitionistc invalidity of the inference from the claim that all truths are knowable to the insane conclusion that all truths are known, or they can outright demur from asserting the existence of forever-unknown truths, perhaps questioning—as Dummett now suggests—the applicability of the Principle of Bivalence to a certain class of empirical statements. I argue that if intuitionists reject strict finitism—the view that all truths are knowable by beings just like us—the prospects for either proposal look bleak.     

On fatalism, pessimism, and depressive symptoms among Mexican-American and other adolescents attending an obstetrics-gynecology clinic

There is growing evidence that Mexican-American adolescents may be at increased risk for depressive symptoms. We sought to replicate and explain this result in a study of adolescent girls attending an obstetric-gynecologic clinic. Three hundred and four girls of diverse ethnic backgrounds completed measures of depressive symptoms, negative attributional style, and locus of control. Consistent with predictions, we found that Mexican-American adolescent girls reported more depressive symptoms than adolescent girls from other ethnic backgrounds, and that Mexican-American adolescent girls displayed more negative cognitive styles than girls from other ethnic backgrounds. Depression differences appeared to be partly explained by differences in negative cognitive style. Implications of the results for a theory of increased Mexican-American adolescent depression, and for applied work, were discussed.